


Diners and Drive-Ins and Diamonds

by goodnightfern



Series: 2017 Supply Drops [5]
Category: Metal Gear
Genre: F/M, M/M, Miller's Maxi Buns, Somehow Not a Meme Fic, Undisclosed Timeline, Where is the Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-02-04 04:02:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12762735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnightfern/pseuds/goodnightfern
Summary: Ocelot takes a trip on down to Flavortown.For wish 229, "Miller's Maxi Buns is featured on Guy Fieri's famous show Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives."





	Diners and Drive-Ins and Diamonds

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SkazuhiraMiller](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkazuhiraMiller/gifts).



> You might be wondering, how did this asshole turn Guy Fieri RPF into Soft OceKaz Feelings? Well, let me show you.

Kaz forwards the email to Nadine immediately because it’s got to be a fake. There’s no way this is happening, but - 

Yes, it’s true.

Freaking Diner’s, Drive-Ins, and Dives picked Miller’s Maxi Buns. It’s real and it’s happening and they want to know what would be a good day for the crew to come over to take opening shots and he’s so excited he knows his replying email is going to be completely incoherent, which means Nadine has to read it over again before he sends it and he’s still so excited he almost forgets the meatloaf in the oven. Fortunately Kaz is a professional and dinner is saved at the last minute. Just a little overdone; an extra five minutes and it would have been shot.

And there it is: that thin panic rising in the back of his throat that he hasn’t felt in years. He pours his bland homemade tomato sauce over his meatloaf and sets it down between Cathy and Nadine. 

“We have to turn them down,” he says. 

Cathy drops her fork just for the drama, clutching her chest like she’s been struck. “Dad, no! Why? How could you say -”

“Ben, is something wrong?” Nadine frowns, worried. “Go get a new fork, Cathy. You’re not eating with that after it’s touched the floor.”

“Mom, stop him!” Cathy pleads even as she’s going back to the kitchen. “I’m going to get Guy Fieri to sign my arm and get it tattooed on there. I need it.”

Nadine rolls her eyes. “We’ll see about that, kiddo.” Then, softer, “Ben? Are you okay? Are you worried about...”

Kaz sighs, rubbing his eyes under his glasses. His wife knows that there’s some things in his past, of course. When they first started dating, Kaz was a lot more paranoid. Hell, when Nadine got pregnant he’d nearly dragged them all up to Alaska to go hide out in the wilderness forever, but that was years ago. Things have changed. They’re safe, now. 

Safe enough that a former internationally known war criminal can show his face on television. No one cares what Kazuhira Miller does these days, and Benedict McDonnell is even more irrelevant. 

“I just think we need to be real about this,” he tells her. “We’re not doing anything that exciting there. That Guy Fieri, too, I don’t like him. He’s got one of those -” he mimes a punch. “Faces.”

“Actually, Guy Fieri just officiated at a hundred gay weddings to celebrate legalization in California,” Cathy calls from the kitchen. “He’s a nice guy.”

“He wears flame shirts, Cathy. In the current year. Because he’s Guy Fieri. Stupidest pun I’ve ever heard in my life.” 

“It’s just his style! Don’t hate the look, Dad!”

“Ben,” Nadine says gently, “you know it’s going to be good for business. And you might not think it, but your customers sure think you’ve got something special. You’re a better cook than my grandma, and I don’t say that to just about anybody.”

That… might be true. Every Thanksgiving the little house in Los Feliz barely accommodates all of Nadine’s family. There isn’t even a question about who rules in the kitchen, even Nadine’s southern grandmother bowing to his will.

“Dad, look. Even your Thursday night meatloaf is the freaking bomb. You got this in the bag, all right?”

"Cathy..." 

“Dad…”

“Ben…”

Kaz starts serving instead of talking. Dinner time is eating time, not talking time. Cathy pouts, but perks up when he drizzles extra tomato sauce on her slice, and Nadine just sighs. 

The meatloaf is all right. It’s just meatloaf. A juicy, flavorful meatloaf that isn’t boring mush isn’t hard to make. Mince up mushrooms, a little bit of greens to get Cathy to eat some veggies, no big deal. Most people just use too many breadcrumbs and then slather it all in some too-sweet tomato sauce with zero texture. Nadine makes a pleased sound in her mouth while she chews, and Cathy oohs and ahhs like she’s reading a steamy teen magazine about some pretty little musicians.

He takes a bite, finally, when Cathy is cutting herself a giant second helping. 

All right. His meatloaf is pretty damn good. 

“I’m sorry, Cathy,” he says. 

She opens her mouth, eyes bright. 

“Sorry you got stuck with a big dumb idiot like me for a father.” He grins. “We’re doing it.”

“Yes!” Cathy thumps the table with her fists. “Flavortown, here we come!”

“What the hell is Flavortown?” Kaz asks, while Nadine nearly chokes on her meatloaf laughing.

 

Kaz feels kind of bad about having to be closed for two days. Elena’s the teenage breadwinner of her family, Mariana’s a single mom, and Trevor just got out of jail for a stupid drug thing and needs all the help he can get, so he brings them and gives the teenagers with zero responsibilities an extra day to skateboard or Playstation or whatever. Cathy has school, and she is absolutely not going to ditch so she can fawn over Mr. Fieri, who probably won’t even be there. Besides, the last time she tried to “help out” in the restaurant she violated the handwashing rule and nearly chopped off her finger using the slicer.

It’s a weird, long day. There’s no way the kitchen is big enough to fit a camera crew, but these guys are used to it, sidling between the deep fryers and slipping up on counters. He has to make one of every item on the menu for them to decide what they want to feature, but they wait to take glamor shots before even tasting the food. Around the middle of the day they take a break, and Elena makes a quick lunch for everyone. Then it’s back to the slowest cooking Kaz has ever done in his life.

“Oh, wow, is that pork loin?” One of the guys asks. He’s the only one not carrying a piece of equipment. He’s the food stylist or something, but he’s a little bit too excited to see Kaz slowly drizzle melted cheese or knead ground beef or squirt on ketchup for the cameras to catch, over and over again. 

“Um, yeah.” He dusts the slice with flour before dipping it in egg. “We do a more traditional pork katsu as well as the burger.” It’s perfectly safe for Kaz to talk about Japan now. “When we started out, it was nothing but burgers, but Japanese food is getting more and more popular, so.”

“I like it, I like it! You’re doing your own thing, buddy. Build your own Flavortown, that’s what I always say!”

Flavortown. Kaz stares at him.

“Wait. You’re Guy Fieri? The Guy Fieri?”

The guy laughs. He just… looks like a middle-aged chubby Italian dude. Dark hair, combed back. “Did you not…? We’re not filming me yet, buddy. That’s tomorrow.”

Kaz swallows. He kind of had a hundred things going on in his head when the guys all showed up, but now he can see it. He’s so dumb. “I just - I guess I was expecting -” he gestures to his own head, making little spiky motions. “More.” 

Guy Fieri laughs a deep belly laugh. Slaps Kaz on the shoulder like they’re best friends or something. “No worries, pal! No worries. I get that a lot.”

So maybe Guy Fieri isn’t that bad after all. Still, Cathy would be disappointed.

The next day is when they invite just a few regulars and a bunch of Nadine’s family to film Kaz and Elena serving them. Cathy comes over straight after school, and Guy Fieri has the freshly bleached tips that make her squeal and hide in the kitchen because suddenly she’s too shy to ask him to sign her forearm. _Teenagers._

Today is a lot more fun. Still nothing like a regular business day, and Cathy does indeed show up to blush and pose for the camera in a quick family shot, smiling in a Miller’s Maxi Bun’s apron like she actually works there. Nadine comes in for the shot, too, though she insists repeatedly she has nothing to do with the cooking or even the accounting. 

“That’s nonsense,” Kaz tells her. “Miller’s Maxi Buns would’ve burned to the ground years ago if it wasn’t for her.” 

“Ben never gives himself enough credit,” she tells Guy Fieri. “Maybe now that he’s gonna be on TV he’ll learn to appreciate himself a little bit more.” 

“Well, I certainly appreciate him,” Fieri says, grinning. “You got one heck of a special sauce, buddy.”

“It’s just Thousand Island! The only difference is I use the Kewpie mayonnaise from Japan.”

Guy Fieri snaps his fingers. “That’s right. We still need to get a glamor shot of that baby-doll bottle.”

By the time the day ends Kaz has been on his feet for about a hundred hours, talked to half the population of the planet, smiled so much his cheeks hurt. He drops in a booth as the camera crew packs up their stuff. Nadine slips in next to him while Cathy hovers around Guy Fieri, still holding out on that autograph. 

“You did great, honey,” she says, squeezing his hand. “You were incredible.”

“Thank you,” he says, genuinely. “And I meant what I said. If it wasn’t for you I would’ve burnt this place down in -”

“But you didn’t,” she says, firmly. “You’re still here.”

“Yeah.” He drops his head down on her shoulder. She smells like the inside of the kitchen just like he does. Her skin tastes like fryer grease and salt under his lips. She’s right. Kaz is still here, and when he sighs and cuddles his wife in his booth at his table inside his very own restaurant all Kaz can think is that there’s nowhere he’d rather be than here. Even when Cathy disrupts their reverie by screaming that she got her autograph, all right, but with the letdown that she didn't get it directly on her forearm. 

Still, when he gets the email later that they’ve finished making the episode and include an airdate, he’ll make one call. A call that he really, really shouldn’t make, but what the hell. Kaz is over it all now, he’s got a real, actual life now. 

That old bastard John can shove it up his ass.

 

 

John says he got a weird call from Miller. Something about some TV show, he doesn’t know. Ocelot presses him gently for details. He knows about the restaurant in Los Angeles, of course. Read raving Yelp reviews and perhaps done a little something about the odd asshole review that thinks they can leave Miller one star for completely inconsequential problems and drag him from his deserved perfect rating. 

He’ll record the episode for John, just in case.

Shadow Moses does indeed have an excellent cable package, one Ocelot rarely indulges in unless Gunsmoke is on TV Land. But today he kicks out the engineers watching their little cartoons to flip to the Food Network and wait. He catches the last five minutes of Ina Garten’s soothing voice as she makes Persian Couscous using saffron supposedly blessed by Muslim shamans and considers sending a strongly worded letter or at least, an assassin. 

The screaming man in a red Corvette with frosted tips is mood whiplash to say the least. Ocelot blinks. This is the show Miller’s going to be on?

Fine. Sure. Ocelot can “come on down to Flavortown.”

“We’re down here in sunny Los Feliz,” the man in a flame shirt says, “where I hear the barrio is brawling over one man’s buns!” 

There’s a splash image of a small restaurant. An awning hanging over the sidewalk. A clapboard sign in front. There’s a small parking lot, a few scrubby palm trees. Miller’s Maxi Buns is, apparently, serving up some greasy-fried goodness that’ll make Ocelot slap his mother and - 

Okay. He isn’t going to listen to the narration anymore.

There’s Miller. 

He looks frozen up a bit in front of the camera. His wife is beautiful, not as young as Ocelot had imagined. The teenage girl looks so much like Miller, if he was mixed with yet another race, but her smile is bigger than any he’s ever seen on Miller’s face. Miller’s arms are wrapped tight around them both, like they're the only things holding him up. 

Ocelot presses pause again to let it play. Now Miller and a teenage Latina are smiling at customers, passing around baskets laid with red-and-white gingham paper. The customers talk excitedly with their mouths full. Miller’s cheeks are pink. 

“Ah, see, this is Kewpie mayonnaise. It’s from Japan,” he’s saying. “Little sweeter than regular mayo.”

He squirts a little bit for Guy Fieri to taste. Guy Fieri smacks his lips. “Ooh, man, let me tell you, that’s the secret right there!” 

Miller says he’s a second-generation immigrant - that’s not right. Benedict McDonnell Miller’s file says third-generation. Ocelot knows, he wrote it himself. But no one seems to notice, especially when Miller breaks out the panko breadcrumbs straight from Japan. 

Wait a second. What is Miller doing with that patty? Is he going to - 

Oh dear.

He’s going to bread and deep-fry a hamburger.

“Now this,” Guy Fieri says, giving the camera a knowing look, “this is the real winner winner chicken dinner right here.” Chicken? It’s clearly - Ocelot shakes his head. He’s got to remember to just tune this guy out.

“That’s right! Our katsu burger is the most popular item on the menu!” Miller’s still flushed, maybe because he’s standing over the deep-fryer. 

And now Ocelot is actually going to die, because apparently Miller sticking his bionic hand into boiling greasy fryer oil is just the coolest thing ever and makes for great TV and, really, Miller better not be doing that every day. 

But Guy Fieri is hollering at the camera and Miller is laughing, abashed. 

The katsu burger gets katsu sauce, wasabi mayo sprinkled with bonito flakes, and a tangy shredded cabbage slaw. When Guy Fieri takes a bite mayo and sauce and grease drip down his chin. His grunting and chewing is audible.

“Hooo, boy,” he says - chewing with his mouth open, wow. “I tell you what, buddy. Never even thought of deep-frying a burger, and man, I think of deep-frying everything. That is genius right there.”

Miller beams. “Buddy, I’m the Albert freakin Einstein of deepfrying,” a statement so asinine Ocelot has no idea how to process it beyond seriously fearing for the state of Miller’s arteries. The man is still in amazing shape even after all these years, at least, but at his age he really ought to cut back on the saturated fats. 

Clearly the man needs a check-in.

Ocelot shaves off his mustache. Tucks up his hair beneath a broad sun hat, puts on a pair of large bug-eyed sunglasses that are all the rage in Los Angeles. Black gloves, perhaps, and a crisp white linen suit. Miller knows he has nothing to fear from Ocelot these days, but it still wouldn’t do for him to be noticed. 

Of course he wears the cowboy boots. He debates the spurs all the way to LAX. It’s a bit of a heartbreak to remove them. 

Los Angeles is bright and sunny and the traffic is a disaster. His rented Jaguar X3 isn’t flashy at all compared to some of the other cars he sees out here, and he makes a mental note to go full sportscar next time he’s in Los Angeles. 

Finally, after hours of slogging and choking on smog, Ocelot pulls into the parking lot of the place he saw on television. 

It’s packed. So busy Miller will never see him, and indeed when he places his order with a teenager from TV he only gets a quick glimpse of Miller running around the tiny open kitchen with a sweaty bandanna tied over his head. Of course Ocelot orders the katsu burger. He has to sit at a long diner counter against the window, right next to a family of three and another lone diner because there isn’t an empty table in sight. He can still see the kitchen, out of the corner of his eye, but it wouldn’t do to stare. 

The burger is delicious. Of course it is. So are the sweet potato fries and the coke. It’s more calories than Ocelot has put in his body in years, but he’s always made wise decisions regarding indulgences. As often as possible, to the absolute fullest. 

He wipes the grease off his gloves when he’s finished. Yet another teenager, this one running around clearing tables as fast as possible, brings him the bill. Before Ocelot can point out that he paid at the counter he actually looks at it.

It’s not a bill - or, it’s an old one, left by a customer yesterday according to the printed date. What’s important is on the back.

 _Sorry we don’t have a tuna burger,_ Miller writes, complete with a quick doodle of a smirking cat, and then, below, in a smaller hand: 

_Congrats on shaving the dead animal off your face._

Ocelot smiles. Folds up the receipt neatly, smoothing a finger across the creases, and slips it in his breast pocket. He walks briskly out of the restaurant. Sits in the car. Still feels the reciept in his pocket. 

His flight out isn’t till tomorrow morning. It was simply the reality of booking a last minute flight. He’s sure he can find something to do in this city. Ocelot had no expectations from this visit, the least of which would be Miller himself tearing out the back kitchen door and sprinting across the parking lot. 

Ocelot kills the engine and rolls down the window when Miller knocks. He’s panting, bent over with his metal hand at his waist.

Ocelot has absolutely no idea what to say to him. Well, Ocelot has a hundred witty little comments he could say, right now, but. 

“I’m not stupid, Ocelot,” is the first thing Miller says. 

“I’ve never taken you for that.”

“I know I wouldn’t have any of this if it wasn’t for you.”

“Hm?” Ocelot tilts his head.

“I’m married, Ocelot. I got a family, I own a business, and I bought a house in one of the worst housing markets in the world, god damnit, and I’m not even an American citizen. I’d be at the bottom of Guantanamo Bay if it wasn’t for you.”

“You are an American citizen now,” Ocelot reminds him. 

“Yeah, I got that.” 

Of course it was never a secret. Just one of the many unsaid things left between them. Setting up Miller's new life wasn’t even that hard, really. Didn’t take very long at all. 

Miller grabs onto the roof of the car, leaning through the open window. Of course he’s got the glasses on. As readable as ever, though. “Thank you. I mean it. And don’t be a jackass and say it was nothing, because to me -” he swallows. “To me, it’s everything.”

“You look happy.”

“I am happy,” Miller says, but he doesn’t move. Still staring at Ocelot.

One final kiss it is, then. Miller was always a romantic like that. 

His lips are greasy from standing over a deep fryer and his mouth tastes like red meat. Even his neck is thick with muscle, he’s sturdier than ever before.

Then Miller leans back. Nods. Turns around and goes back to his life, leaving Ocelot to press a gloved finger to his lips, wondering.


End file.
